A Shellfish Cocktail like no other, learn to make the Bentley's version at home!
The Bentley’s Oyster Bar & Grill Shellfish Cocktail goes down in legend, amongst certain Mayfair folk! Before the restaurant was in Richard Corrigan’s safe hands, he visited to find the seafood bar full of frozen fish. He vowed to put the most obscene Shellfish Cocktail on the menu when he took over, crammed full of the freshest and highest quality fish he could find, and so here we are today!
A homage to what Bentley’s always should have been and hopefully always will be, it’s full of the best stuff we can get our hands on, lovingly prepared and slightly enhanced. It’s what we do best and we hope we’ll see you at the Oyster Bar soon to enjoy one.
In the mean time, please enjoy our recipe here to make your own Bentley’s Shellfish Cocktail at home!
A mixture of the best seafood you can find (we use Cornish White Crab; Atlantic prawns; Lobster Tails and Claws; and Brown Shrimps, peeled)
Extra virgin olive oil
A squeeze of lemon juice
2 baby gem lettuce
1 small cucumber peeled, deseeded and diced
For the cocktail sauce
2 parts mayonnaise
1 part tomato ketchup
A splash of brandy
A dash of Tabasco sauce
A pinch of paprika
A squeeze of lemon juice
- The quantities of seafood you use are up to you: just try to get a good mix of everything. How much sauce you make is really up to you too. Keep tasting it, and adjust until it makes you smile. Simon Hopkinson had a nice idea of mixing a little cottage cheese into a cocktail sauce; it lightens it up a bit and makes it less cloying, but you just know that no one has ever come up with anything as good.
- Mix together all the ingredients for the sauce. Take four old-fashioned cocktail glasses. Season all the seafood with a little extra virgin olive oil, salt and a drop of lemon juice.
- To assemble, put some lettuce and cucumber at the bottom of the glass, which will give a lovely crunch, then layer up your seafood, put a dollop of sauce on top and let people mix everything up, or keep everything separate, as they choose.